We talked a lot today about fine lines: between ritual and performance, religious and cultural, creative and productive, religion and ethnicity. One thing that we didn’t quite get a chance to discuss explicitly was Haynes’s ideas about creativity as they do or do not apply to the forms of Indian dance. Are those creative? If they are supposedly performed exactly as they have been for centuries, can they still be considered creative performance, despite lacking novelty? If it breaks from tradition, is it still religious? I think it goes back to perspective. The performer may experience their dancing as religious, even while the audience is viewing it merely as entertainment. Conversely, someone viewing a dance performance can experience it religiously, even if the performer does not intend it as such.
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